7-Year-Old Shows Uncle Small Black Booklet Found at Playground Slide… Instantly They Rush to Police

When Aidan Wright was playing on a slide in Salem, Massachusetts, the 7-year-old probably never imagined that he’d be involved in a moral dilemma. However, that’s exactly what happened when the little tike found a checkbook with $8,000 in it this past Saturday.

“I ran up the slide and there was this black checkbook, and I opened it up and found $8,000 in it and brought it to my uncle,” Aidan told Boston TV station WBZ.

“I took it back to my truck and I counted it out,” Aidan’s uncle, Daniel Wright, said. “And it was $8,000.”

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While many would have pocketed the money, Aidan had been raised to believe in the Golden Rule, and so had his uncle.

“You’re going to learn an important lesson today,” Daniel Wright told his nephew, according to The Salem Times.

Or, as Aidan himself put it, “Treat other people the way you want to be treated.”

Checks in the checkbook brought them back to the owner of the money, contractor Elias Santos. He had just gotten paid, and had been playing with his children on the same slide when the money fell out.

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“When the police called me I was so surprised,” Santos told reporters. “I am so grateful because we don’t have people like this no more.”

Santos hadn’t even noticed the money was missing; he only discovered it when law enforcement contacted him and asked if he had misplaced anything. Santos went to check his pants and discovered that he had lost the checkbook and money.

As for little Aidan Wright, don’t worry: Elias Santos made sure that the young man with a heart of gold got his reward.

“He was so happy that he gave me this,” Aidan said, holding up a crisp $100 bill for the cameras.

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Aidan is keeping everything in perspective, though. When asked by a reporter whether he had ever even seen $8,000, Wright said, “I just did today.”